Politics and News Through the Libertarian Lens

I'm very comfortable on my little farm. My wife is the best thing that ever happened to me. I've got great kids. I've got more hobbies than I should. I don't need the hassle of running for office; particularly when people keep foolishly blabbering about "odds" and "working within the system."

Why do you suppose I've been battling "The Two Party System" for over twenty years nonstop? You think I like it? No, I don't.

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Like everything Democrat v Republican, the Orwellian-styled legalistic effluvium known as the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” (Indiana’s recent edition of this, anyway) has become its own religion, with priests and heretics, idolaters and zealous enemies pro and con. So, once again, the self-appointed Two Party System has you arbitrarily separated into two opposing partisan tribes, feuding against each other needlessly, in our apparently endless game of Enemy Du Jour Whack-A-Mole.

This is stupid, destructive, and, of course, unconstitutional.

Unless you actually read the text of the law, you are deceived by the profusion of political rhetoric. If you do read the law and still think it’s what the combatants, pro and con, say it is, you are self-deceived.

Let’s take this step by step, shall we?

First, did anybody amend the Indiana Constitution’s Article I Sections 1-5, where people are acknowledged to have religious rights surpassing any government power?

No.

So why do these enumerated rights need restoration? Who took away these rights? From whom do they need to be restored if politicians were to keep their mitts off these freedoms?

Why do we think this law is necessary?

Because no politician in Indiana is keeping her/his oath of office, that’s why.

Nobody is affirming constitutional rights over the plethora of contradictory, divisive, cliquish and corrupt laws that, according to the Indiana Constitution’s Article I Section 25, (and as clarified by the federal constitution’s 9th and 10th amendments) are null and void anyway.

Nobody is doing the constitutions. Not politicians, and certainly not voters who can’ be bothered with such things when there’s always something more entertaining going on.

I shouldn’t have to go any further than that.

But let’s look at the law itself now:

“Sec. 6. As used in this chapter, “governmental entity” includes the whole or any part of a branch, department, agency, instrumentality, official, or other individual or entity acting under color of law of any of the following: (1) State government. (2) A political subdivision (as defined in IC 36-1-2-13). (3) An instrumentality of a governmental entity described in subdivision(1) or (2), including a state educational institution, a body politic, a body corporate and politic, or any other similar entity established by law.”

Pay attention to the preceding definition of applicable governmental entity. It basically grants that all agents of our current government, including bureaucrats, teachers, or anybody under political whim, has authority under this law. For the purposes of this law (you’ve got to read it), that is unconstitutionally granting that non-executives have executive power, and non-judicial folk have judicial powers, since this law grants (as you will see) broad powers of judgment and action to governmental entities to “burden” your rights.

Before pondering the obviously vague term, “burden,” let’s get more into the more clearly understandable “language” (Newspeak for “words”).

“Sec. 7. As used in this chapter, “person” includes the following: (1) An individual. (2) An organization, a religious society, a church, a body of communicants, or a group organized and operated primarily for religious purposes. (3) A partnership, a limited liability company, a corporation, a company, a firm, a society, a joint-stock company, an unincorporated association, or another entity that: (A) may sue and be sued; and (B) exercises practices that are compelled or limited by a system of religious belief held by: (i) an individual; or (ii) the individuals; who have control and substantial ownership of the entity, regardless of whether the entity is organized and operated for profit or nonprofit purposes.”

Note the corporate person fiction. Corporations, including churches under 501c3, are already under political authority as they, unlike actual living people, are government-created abstractions. Grouping actual humans into this should warn you that this law evokes all the usual corruption. But most people don’t get this, and that is another topic for another day, so I’ll move on to the more actionable words:

“Sec. 8. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability. (b) A governmental entity may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if the governmental entity demonstrates that application of the burden to the person: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

Sec. 9. A person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a violation of this chapter may assert the violation or impending violation as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding. If the relevant governmental entity is not a party to the proceeding, the governmental entity has an unconditional right to intervene in order to respond to the person’s invocation of this chapter.

Sec. 10. (a) If a court or other tribunal in which a violation of this chapter is asserted in conformity with section 9 of this chapter determines that: (1) the person’s exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened; and (2) the governmental entity imposing the burden has not demonstrated that application of the burden to the person: (A) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (B) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest; the court or other tribunal shall allow a defense against any party and shall grant appropriate relief against the governmental entity. (b) Relief against the governmental entity may include any of the following: (1) Declaratory relief or an injunction or mandate that prevents, restrains, corrects, or abates the violation of this chapter. (2) Compensatory damages. (c) In the appropriate case, the court or other tribunal also may award all or part of the costs of litigation, including reasonable attorney’s fees, to a person that prevails against the governmental entity under this chapter.”

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Read the whole section above and see how, “A governmental entity may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if…” …it wants to.

Do you not see what happens here? Read the Indiana Constitution’s Article I Section 25. Try to find anywhere in that constitution where politicians should have any authority to write a law that in any way “burden a person’s” rights, either enumerated or not. That’s not how the constitutions, state and federal, are supposed to work…at all!

We The People are supposed to be the boss of government, not the other way around!

Boiling down what the law actually says:

The state itself can’t oppose your rights…unless it wants to. The state may back you up in court…or not. The state is who the state says it is, and it decides whether its motives and actions are right, or not.

Does this comfort you?

It never affirms anybody’s rights in any way at all. It never grants that you can do business as you see fit. It never says that nobody will make you sell when you don’t want to sell. It never says the state can’t force you to compromise your religious beliefs in action.

To the contrary…it says very clearly that the state may well oppose you in all the above.

It’s been twenty years, but I’ve finally taken to heart all the criticisms of my political pessimism. It clearly does no good to be a “downer,” or “too negative” anyway. So, as the keystone to this year’s New Year’s resolutions, I’m presenting a more optimistic face to the world.

After all, there can surely never be another dictator like Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, or Adolf Hitler to spoil our natural state of freedom. How could humanity ever again produce somebody like Pol Pot, Tojo, Jorge Videla, Francisco Franco, Leopold II or Augusto Pinochet? The various Robert Mugabe, Somoza, Noriega, Ceaucescu, Mubarak, Batista, al-Bashir, Chavez, Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il types are just a rare aberrance from the human norm of wise and benevolent rulers like…

Well, that’s not important now.

Sure, there may have been a time when sick and brutal tyrants like Nero, Vlad III, Herod, Caligula and Genghis Khan were more the rule than the exception. But certainly, now, people like Ho Chi Minh, Slobodan Milosevic, Kagame, Duvalier, Erdoğan, Calderón, and Khomeini are so rare that it’s understandable and probably even reasonable that most of us are lackadaisical about politics, and trust that our ruling class is properly taking care of our needs. The hundreds of millions killed in the past century were just a statistical anomaly, you know. Really, what are the odds that we will get another Chiang Kai-Shek, Enver Pasha, Hirohito, Abdul Hamid II or Yahya Khan to order such inhuman terror?

While it may seem that our government is so much more secretive, deceptive, powerful and invasive than in those simpler, gentler days of America’s peaceful and humanitarian past (setting aside, of course, transient errors like slavery, Jim Crow, experiments on soldiers and prisoners, and the genocide of millions of Native Americans), I’m sure there is no cause for concern here in the Land of The Free, where we choose our own rulers in fair and open elections!

So, no more finger-pointing warnings from me anymore. No sir. My message for the New Year is, just relax! Your nation is competently, rationally, impartially and sustainably operated by people who care about you as an individual of dignity, in liberty and justice.

Just as I’ve learned my lessons about overly grave sobriety, humanity has learned its lessons about corruption and violence. Humankind’s awful, classist, thieving and brutish history is behind us now. All that’s left for modern Americans to do is spend our money, pay our taxes, and enjoy the peace, prosperity, justice and equality under law we all so richly deserve.

Yes, indeed, it is time we finally get what we deserve. Happy New Year!

There’s a lot of chest-beating, sturm und drang over the recent events in Nevada. Some people think this should be our Battle of Lexington.
Americans should’ve been up in arms a hundred years ago, when a relative handful of moneychanger cronies took over the country. That would’ve been morally and constitutionally warranted. So I suppose every minute since then could serve as good as another to set things right in this nation.

But…why this?
And how did we get here?

Isn’t the corruption of our republic exactly and only what We The People have freely and repetitiously chosen every Tax Day, every Election Day for the past one hundred years?
We are here because it’s where we chose to go. What’s different now? What’s in Nevada that should make us fight?

The Nevada Constitution (1864) is dreadful.
First, under the ordinance empowering the state’s constitutional convention was this:
“Third. That the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States.”

And that led to some of the most horrible words humans ever wrote into law in their Article I, Section 2:

“But the Paramount Allegiance of every citizen is due to the Federal Government in the exercise of all its Constitutional powers as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and no power exists in the people of this or any other State of the Federal Union to dissolve their connection therewith or perform any act tending to impair[,] subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States. The Constitution of the United States confers full power on the Federal Government to maintain and Perpetuate its existance [existence], and whensoever any portion of the States, or people thereof attempt to secede from the Federal Union, or forcibly resist the Execution of its laws, the Federal Government may, by warrant of the Constitution, employ armed force in compelling obedience to its Authority.”

There’s a lot of anticonstitutional, antilibertarian madness in that; perhaps the worst being that it essentially places the Supreme Court above both the states, and the federal constitution itself. That’s entirely opposed to the founders’ original intent and plain words.

That phrase, “…as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States” replaces the written US constitution with SCOTUS whimsy. And that phrase makes the constitution of Nevada irrelevant in any way other than as a declaration of complete obeisance to our global ruling class.

I’ve already said I understand the role of physical resistance and even violence in the way that MLK Jr’s efforts were almost certainly made more effective by the “bad cop” role of people like Robert F. Willams (president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP – you should look up his story – very relevant to 2nd Amendment discussions) the Black Power movement, Black Panthers, etc.

But man o man I wish the armed and angry folks would find a better cause to fight over than what’s happening with the ever-vague land use rights in the west…particularly in Nevada.

I’ve got a list of things that should make you tornado rocket nuclear lightning mad, if you’re interested. (like, you and your loved ones are being robbed and deceived right now…as I write this)

But let’s agree to how we’re to live instead before we try to overthrow anything or anybody. Because what we’ve got is what we have been choosing for a hundred years every Election Day.

There are hard ways and easy ways to change things. But before you go and change things again (remember, what we have really is change – change is constant), you’d better finally get into your head exactly what it is that you want instead.

We have been told that we operate under a “two party system” that, in fact, never existed in law or practice.

What does exist, is a globe-spanning criminal crony network that has hoodwinked and robbed us for generations.

Given the incessant, ongoing revelations of scandal and corruption in our government, as well as the common observation that things have gone terribly wrong, my hope is that more of us awaken to this fact, and vote accordingly.

That awakening is a long time coming. The worst of the crime ring’s basic infrastructure started just over a hundred years ago with a network of private bankers given monopoly power over our currency. With their debt/inflation-based fiat currency comes an ancient pattern of failure that consumed most of the greatest civilizations in history. And this time, it is truly a global colossus that is about to collapse in what would be the worst, most violent and impoverishing conflagration ever.

This is a lot of “conspiracy theory” to absorb, let alone believe, so for now I’ll ignore the global monetary, espionage and military systems, and start with what you can see every day here in Indiana.

The Indiana Constitution’s Article I, Section 23 is strong and specific in prohibiting special individual or class rights: “The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.”

In direct violation of this clear prohibition, members of the private clubs called the Democratic and Republican parties have incrementally and over the past century created and protected special powers as “major” parties under Indiana Code.

It’s surprising how many people don’t know that only the Ds and Rs get taxpayer-funded primary elections that serve as vehicles for free media promotion, more donations, and direct public involvement with the internal affairs of their parties. Only they can have Precinct Committeemen with special political rights and powers, yet without the constitutional and antitrust restrictions on other political officeholders. Only “the major political parties” are entitled to serve on the Indiana Election Commission and Recount Commission, among other things.

Worse still is that the Democratic and Republican parties have illegally placed arbitrary barriers and special requirements on all alternative candidates that make it vastly more difficult for them to get on ballots, be seen on ballots, or even come close to the level of taxpayer-supported organization voters assume are shared by all political parties.

In case you think that new law trumps old law; that’s not how constitutions work at all. Both Indiana’s Article I, Section 25, and the federal constitution’s 10th amendment make it plain that violations of the constitutions are null and void; they’re no more “law” than if a cat coughed them up.

The good news is that all governments are by consent of the governed. Even the most oppressive regimes are overthrown when the people have had enough. And we have elections so that our revolutions can be peaceful.

So, look around the various structural and media roadblocks to research the truth on your own.

I’m hoping you’ll realize that even participating in their primary elections gives too much help to corrupt parties that don’t need our help. I hope you’ll see that it’s not alternative candidates who need to explain what they’re doing on the ballot. I really hope you’ll look at what our nation has become, look at the agents of that monstrosity, and ask, “How dare you show yourself on our ballots again?”

In light of all the madness in DC today, I’d like to make a counter offer:

1) Rule of Law Reboot: A resolution reaffirming that the US Constitution is a civil law contract, to be obeyed as written. What’s not clear must be clarified by written amendment. What needs to change needs to be changed by written amendment. Details are here: http://wedeclare.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/rule-of-law-reboot/, and here: http://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/the-united-states-constitution.pdf.

2) A resolution reinforcing that, in the constitution as actually written and amended, there are only seven federal crimes that apply to citizens outside of Washington, DC (1. counterfeiting, 2. piracy, 3. high seas felony, 4. offense against the Law of Nations, and, 5. treason. Tax and postal crimes are implied, but unfortunately, unspecified). Other federal crimes must either be the result of a trans-state-border dispute (murders, other State crimes crossing state lines, for example), or are not federal crimes at all, and the wrongly convicted would be freed.

4) I propose we cut as many nations as possible loose from both our purse strings and browbeating. Peace, commerce and cautious optimism with all nations, entangling alliances with none.

5) I don’t oppose everything our legislators have done recently. I’d strongly support “Free Competition in Currency Act,” which was reintroduced in this Congress by Rep. Paul Broun (H.R. 77)

6) Pork (“earmark” or localized spending added to bills) is unconstitutional, and it’s time we call it the crime it is. Farm subsidies, corporate welfare, federal block grants that should originate and end within the states…they all must stop. I will squeal whenever I see pork. That alone will keep me busy.

7) I know that the federal constitution isn’t perfect. But I really hesitate to even mention amending the constitution, given who’d be sitting next to me in congress. But since I’ve been asked about this, here’re some amendments I’d propose if I thought they could be ratified intact:

a) Sunset Amendment: a 10-year expiration date for all non-constitutionally specified agencies, laws, powers and programs to gracefully remove, or at least review for reinstatement, everything that’s not specifically written into the constitution. Our laws must be simple enough to understand, few enough to know, and important enough to enforce without classes or exceptions. So a regular “spring cleaning” is required.

b) To more specifically forbid central banking and “monopoly money” in both senses of the term (money backed by nothing, enforced by government monopoly on currency).

c) To nullify the 16th Amendment, which essentially pays for only central banking anyway.

d) To very specifically limit the authority grant of Article I, Section 8:3 (the “Commerce Clause”) to only disputes/issues between states, and not within states.

e) To clarify or even nullify the misinterpreted and increasingly dangerous “Law of Nations”, or jus gentium (Article I, Section 10).

f) To modernize references to the Navy (Article I, Section 8:13-14; Article II, Section 2:1, the 5th Amendment) and “high Seas” (Article I, Section 8:10) to delimit authority and armament in the air and space as well.

I’ve worked in healthcare since 1978 in public health, research, clinical, education and industry roles. And I can’t tell you what healthcare is.

To my wife, it’s massage and things that smell nice. To others, it’s Reiki, or heterodox nutrition. Some debate that vaccines are bad medicine, but marijuana is great healthcare. And they have convincing arguments.

Is gender-reassignment, or voodoo healthcare too? I don’t know.

I think cardiovascular science and technology is really cool stuff, it’s my specialty, and I think it should qualify as healthcare. But as for everything else? I can’t even give you a clean definition of “health.” And I’ve been in the business my whole life.

Politicians sure think they know all about it. And by the Election Day polling numbers, well-over 90% of us believe and trust that politicians should control …everything.

But after the more than 100 years the unionized AMA has wielded political monopoly power, the 80 years of taxpayer subsidized health insurance, 60 years of socialized health, education and welfare, and the almost 50 years of even more directly socialized healthcare in the form of our rapidly swelling Medicare system, I’m appalled that we think we want more politics in healthcare. I’m disgusted that we’ve been lead to believe that health insurance is what we want when that is often antithetical to healthcare. And I’m embarrassed that We The People haven’t seen a better way to live that’s always been right before us.

In every field of science, technology and plain old merchandise that isn’t so political, costs decrease while quality, efficacy and availability increases with every new advance. Luxuries of yesterday like cellphones and personal computers are now ubiquitous and powerful necessities.

The in-your-face availability and range of price/quality in shoes, coffee, kitchen gadgets and even things like used magazines and historical wristwatch reproductions has become amazing in a relative freedom from political control.

There’ve been innumerable healthcare advances in the last century that would’ve made healthcare cheap, effective, and easily available to all…if not for all the politics that’s been creeping in since Teddy Roosevelt’s time.
Politicians have already made everything related to medicine unfair, complicated, ever-changing, severely limited, and ghastly expensive.

And they’re not done yet.

However, none of the preceding is any part of my main objection to more politics in healthcare.
I’ll let others quibble over whether politicians will finally be able to keep a promise, or make something work at all as advertised.

The real problem, whenever we rub that genie’s lamp of politics, is corruption, and calamity.

Everything government does, it does by force. Politics can’t do anything without at least the threat of fines, taxes, courts, guns and prisons.

It’s easy to dream that this kind of force can be used for good. But the usual reality, as evidenced by all of human history, is a scale and degree of injustice and death that only politics can achieve.
Power is of course a seduction for those who’d wield it. But it’s just as attractive to those who can simply buy the portion of such power as suits their purposes.

And make no mistake. All power is for sale.

Whenever politicians are allowed to steal a new power, there’s a new industry in lobbying for the use of that power. We can see how that lobby has worked for the military industrialists and bankers, and we should see what it has done to our health, education and welfare as well.

Adding more power to government, with more snooping into things that are more personal than ever before possible, only makes the resulting corruption more dangerous.

Hitler’s infamous “T4” eugenics/euthanasia program under Germany’s socialized healthcare system certainly demonstrated one hazard in giving politicians so much power over life. But think about what we already know of our own government; what they’ve admitted to from the past (testing plutonium on school kids, syphilis experiments on black men, experiments on soldiers), and what they’ve been forced to admit recently about their spying, militarization and deceit. Think hard about how much more secretive, powerful and deceitful we know our government to be now than ever before; and just what such a government is capable of doing with the actual coding in our cells.

And changing the role of healthcare workers from healers to government agents who’ll give to politicians everything from your DNA to your intimate personal and family details, will, over time, change the sort of people who’d seek out such a career.
You really shouldn’t want that to happen.

We The People have exactly and only what we have freely and repetitiously chosen not just every every day we sigh, and yield to what we know is wrong and isn’t working; but also every Election Day.

Elections were meant to be a means of peaceful revolution. We’d better finally use them for that purpose, because the power over our bodies we’re granting to politicians now will have no good end, unless that end is determined by our change of heart and mind.

What follows is a resolution that’d be a good first step to a better course for our nation.
If elected to congress, I’d introduce it immediately.
But don’t wait for me…please feel free to send this to your representatives in local, state or federal office.
PLEASE do this or something like it!
I’d of course prefer that this be passed as a Bill or Joint Resolution. But even as a Concurrent or Simple Resolution, it’d open a discussion on what sort of nation we’re to be; a nation with governed government, or a great big crime syndicate:

Whereas the plain wording of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution for the United States of America is binding law;

Be it resolved that;

No federal law, agency, program or international treaty that depends upon authority not specifically granted by the Constitution for the United States of America shall be valid within the United States of America;

Any federal agency, law, program or international treaty transcending authority specifically granted by the Constitution for the United States of America is null and void;

Unconstitutional laws, agencies, programs and treaties have created both problems and dependencies that will take time to rectify;

All unconstitutional federal powers, delegations, laws, programs, treaties and entities that cannot be immediately nullified must be phased out within no more than ten years.

Let’s say that in your garage there was a trash can filled with greasy rags into which you’d carelessly thrown a cigarette, and it caught fire. Let’s further assume (because it’s exactly what happened), that you didn’t use the fire extinguisher that was already in your hand. Instead, you put that down and called 911.

OK, so you didn’t just watch the fire grow into a problem while you waited for the fire department to show up.

No, you called your whole family into the garage. They all put down the fire extinguishers that were in their hands so that they could cup their faces and wail as the fire started to spread out from the garage, and to the house.

The firemen arrived very quickly though. You were relieved when they handed you the questionnaire asking what items are most important to you.

You and your family chatted about family pictures, furniture and whatnot. There was some quibbling over whether to check off “family pets” because only your daughter liked the cat. And your son started a minor conflagration over his Legos.

But the firemen were very patient as you finally handed back the checklist and they set to work, efficiently and very bravely carrying out precious items (including that darned cat) as your garage, your house, your garden shed and both cars burned into char, rubble, slag and smoldering goo.

So there you are. You have a pile of stuff, and that’s good. But now you wonder if you really filled out that checklist correctly. You just remembered that old Auntie Ethel was in the spare bedroom. And what about all the cash in the mattress?

Those weren’t even on the check list!

And (something nagging the back of your mind)…isn’t there some other way this could have turned out?

You looked down your street. Both ways. You see that all your neighbors are also muttering over and kicking through their smoking wreckage and pile of stuff.

You all share a hearty laugh.

Oh well. C’est la vie.

But that’s not how I feel about this absurd situation at all. I was reminded of my frustrations when I got an email from my congressman that contained just such a checklist along with this message:

“Please take a moment to let me know which issues are of interest to you and indicate your willingness to receive updates from my office.”

What the H, my fellow Americans, are we doing?

Rome is burning. Your kids’ future is on fire. And you’re picking at little bits of 2nd Amendment here, taxes there…should we keep security and uncheck the liberty box?

Dammit, people, wake up.

There is only one problem worth discussing; and that is that your government is totally off the rails. It’s breaking laws left and right, and has been doing so, increasingly, for decades.

We’d have none of the biggest troubles of today if our politicians would obey their oaths of office and obey the constitutions, both state and federal, as written.

If they’d quit breaking the law – or, more appropriately, if we’d quit letting them get away with their lawbreaking, our taxes would be a tiny fraction of what they are now, we’d have better services, more jobs, opportunity, liberty, security, justice, health, education and welfare…and we’d have none of the mindless, foolish, deadly destructive and alwaysneverending wars that have sapped our national soul of its bravery, generosity and common sense.

Dammit, people, wake up!

You can put out the fire any time you want to. You can fix it all overnight, in a day…any time you choose. It’s not just up to you…this IS you.

Our government perfectly reflects We The People. It’d dissolve into nothing if we could behave like we should. It’s instead grown into a monster on the fuel of our ignorance, sloth, jealousy, fear and hatred.

Wake up and join us on July 4, from 11am to 1pm for a parade around the Indianapolis Circle, a march to the Indiana Statehouse, and a rally in support of the constitutional rule of law that we want back.

Over the years I’ve increasingly thought it interesting that the first two of the Ten Commandments, in essence, warn against idolatry.

Sure, murder is bad; but that’s way down at number six; before adultery, stealing, lying and coveting.

From a context of politics, anyway, the first two commandments, something like “In God We Trust,” warn against making abstractions (OK, other than God, if you’re an atheist) real. I’ve come to think of this as, well, brilliant.

Yes, the way the commandments are ordered from first establishing proper relationships, to concomitant proper behavior, is eminently logical, proper and wise.

But I’m not writing this about wisdom, logic, morality or even sanity; I’m writing about politics. That abstraction, is, as you should know by now, the opposite of all that is good and wholesome. The secular corollary of In God We Trust is, after all, In Politics We Do Not.

So let’s get something straight – there are no such “things” as politics, political parties, nations, “Us” or “Them.” You can’t punch a corporation or tickle a union. You can’t feed an economy to starve a recession because they are abstractions. They exist, really, only in our collective, inherently tribal…and idolatrous, minds.

We may try to delegate away our own part in decisions and actions by claiming some office or duty to a corporation, a government, a racial/societal class, or an army. But in ultimately accountable fact, we, as individuals, choose and act as individuals.

This is the basis of “Austrian School” praxeology, or action axiom, besides being an important message of the Ten Commandments.

Properly understood, this concept of individual choice and rejection of idolatry (assigning judgment and action to abstractions, and/or pledging obedience to abstractions) fully dismisses as absurd such following rationalizations:

We all must sacrifice some of our own comforts to save the economy.

It’d be better if our President was (gay, Hispanic, atheist, a woman or whatever)

Corporations are bad while unions are good; or visa versa.

It took us a long time to screw up this bad; it’ll take us a long time to do better.

It’s a cruel, complicated world; we need cruel and complicated laws.

Those other guys are scary and violent; we need more missiles and soldiers and wars.

Sadly, most of us surrender to abstraction. We solemnly pledge to obey a flag, while complaining that the politics we’ve voted for over and over again, sucks. We know our chosen political tribe is messed up, but insist it’d be madness to vote for any alternative. We suspect our “nation” abstraction won’t be around much longer; but curiously, can’t even describe what that nation really is or how it works (Social Security? Cops in riot gear? Single-class basketball?). Some of us even advocate a “revolution” to overthrow a government that, doggone it, we freely chose ourselves.

Even ideology can be an idol. One of the oddest things, to me as a candidate (another abstraction, BTW), is how voters will ask me how my ideology differs from the other candidates when we should know by now that ideology has nothing to do with our current form of cronyism. Lobbyists, powerbrokers and bankster/moneychangers rule; ideology has nothing to do with it. That’s what we’ve chosen.

Our abstractions are so deeply ingrained and heartfelt that it’s in fact difficult to communicate without invoking these abstractions…especially in politics…whatever that is.

We could always choose better. But we very, very rarely do.

So, through all recorded history, humanity’s default state has been oppression, slavery, genocide and war. It’s only very rarely that humans choose to live in peace, prosperity and that most rare and precious abstraction of all, freedom.

Yes, incremental decay seems historically inevitable. Rapid collapse happens very frequently. But real improvement in societal terms, when it happens at all (can count on the fingers of one hand) much more frequently happens fast; by radical epiphany and action. A single generation, a single war, a single election, can change everything politically important.

All I can do as a candidate is offer a choice that’s different, and I think better, than what we’ve chosen so far. I’m offering fewer abstractions; a real and dramatic reduction in our reliance on collective abstracted actions that, it so happens, rely on violating much of the other Ten Commandments. Because without abstractions, you know, taxation is theft and war is murder. And those are not good things at all.

Freedom, IN: Like all things political, the “gay marriage” issue has become far more battle cry and “litmus test” than sane discussion.

What we call gay marriage is not (I repeat, NOT) about a church recognized covenant between a man, a woman, and God. No, the church gave that unto Caesar a long time ago. That’s why the minister says, “…by the power vested in me by the State of…”

Marriage, my fellow Americans, is politics.

Now, marriage is about Social Security, bereavement pay, visitation rights, property rights, work rules, tax rules, and more rules, rules rules from the Great Caesar’s Golden Calf. Marriage is legal, contractual, corporate, political privilege, rights, guardianship and healthcare.

So, those who now want to claim the moral high ground on traditional marriage have wallowed into the preposterous role of promoting disparity in matters of simple justice.

Not only is this the moral thing to do, it is also the Law of the Land. Our constitutions were written in large part to prevent politicians from granting “to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.” (Indiana Constitution Article I Section 23)

That is what I’m putting on the ballot – rules that are few enough to know, simple enough to understand, and important enough that they’re to apply equally…to all.

This is all written down in the annotated Indiana and US Constitutions at http://horningforsenate.com. These precious, workable laws will be on the US Senate ballot exclusively under the name, Andrew Horning (L).

I had to kill a rooster about an hour ago. He’d been attacking people, including me. We all agreed that, while he was a prize-winning-beautiful bird, we had too many roosters and this taloned terrorist had to go. So I finished my workday, and put on some gloves and safety glasses. My youngest son Hark locked the dogs inside to avoid undue excitement (you don’t want your dogs to develop a taste for your chickens), and he also put on gloves and safety glasses.

Yeah, the rooster was mean and could jump high. His spurs are sharp and his beak drew blood too. A few weeks ago, Hark accidentally blinded the rooster’s right eye while fighting him off, but that only made the rooster even more fearful and aggressive.

I think he knew what was coming, as Hark and I started across the field toward the free-ranging flock. Maybe the saddest part for me was when he ran behind his favorite hen; the one whose back he’d plucked completely bare. The cocky bully turned chicken in his final moments, and my heart sank. I almost called the whole thing off. Maybe I should have.

I don’t know.

Anyway, while my son and I both chased him down, I got the short straw as the one able to grab the rooster first. I scooped up the squawking chainsaw of beak, feathers and two-inch spurs, and swiftly broke his neck.

I suppose it was as quick a death as possible, but man, I hated doing that. I took a life that was fighting for life. He wanted to live, and I killed him.

Damn.

Since moving to the farm, I’ve had to kill many animals, for many perfectly understandable reasons, but I’ve never gotten used to it. My hands shake and my spirit is heavy for a long time after shooting or twisting the life out of even the most vicious creature. If anything, it’s getting harder every time.

Do not take me for a saint. When I was very young, I had little trouble extinguishing the life of bugs, frogs, squirrels, or whatever else was on the wrong end of my shoe, slingshot, bow or gun.

But a more mature perspective has revealed to me the preciousness of life, and the horror of stealing life. I don’t kill from childish fear or flippancy. While I don’t at all begrudge hunters their sport, killing is never a sport to me. It’s just something that sometimes has to be done in the real world.

Yes, this is about politics. Damn it all, this is most definitely about politics.

What is politics, after all, but the delegation of reality to somebody else? Politics is about taking somebody else’s money for our convenience and comforts. It’s about risking somebody else’s life for our sense of security. It’s about blaming somebody else for our choices and making somebody else pay for our mistakes. Mostly, it seems these days, it’s about getting other people to do your violence for you.

Right?

Why else would we put up with it?

Anyway, the original societal design written into our state and federal constitutions is quite different from what we delude ourselves with today.

We citizens are supposed to take account for our own violence/killing…personally. We are still (the laws of the land haven’t been altered) to be citizen soldiers, trained in the use and accountability of deadly force. We are to consider what it means to look into another person’s eyes before snuffing out all his or her opportunities. We are to think long and hard before entering another person’s nation to serve some political whimsey. We are, in point of fact and fact of the point, to be responsible adults who treat others as we’d like to be treated.

Of course, how could the cronies who own and operate our politicians arrange their profitable wars if our 40 to 50-year-old adults had to leave their homes and careers to kill strangers on their own soil? Would the wise and arthritic vote for entanglements by which they, personally, would have to risk their lives?

It’s by no accident that we’ve laid most of the personal risks of war upon our young and ill-informed. We know the human brain’s ability to assess risk and benefit is undeveloped and fragile in today’s soldiering age-range of teens to thirty. It’s too easy to whip up the young into a Hatfield v McCoy, or Colts versus Bears tribalism. They are too brave, too fearless, too free of adult restraint, to be the anti-violent force that freedom requires.

And as for our “adults…” Shame, shame, shame on us all for being so racked with fear of ever-present and ever-changing hobgoblins that we’re willing to send our own children away to die to assuage our trembling nerves.

It’s too easy for the fearful, selfish, greedy and foolish among us to direct these young bucks to do our evil for us in the name of patriotic duty, and that embarrassing rationalization of Fear Aggression Syndrome – “security.” We’re no better than the ancient savages, sacrificing children to the gods. Worse, perhaps, in that this is a global game of Whack-a-Mole by remote control. We kill from our easy chairs and call it a “necessary evil.”

Maybe this is a long way to come to my core point, but I didn’t want to just come out and directly state that I abhor that “…thank a soldier” mentality.

I have great respect for soldiers. I’ve seen the service do great things for people who serve. I’ve met few rotten soldiers and plenty whom I admire. Pretty much everybody in my family forever has been in the military at some point; at least a couple earned military career retirement. My dad was a decorated war pilot and POW.

But exactly who is it that ever takes away liberty? Who is able to oppress, enslave and steal on a large scale? Was it Stalin or Mao themselves who killed so many millions of their own citizens?

…Or did they have professional help?

Isn’t it obvious from even the most brief examination of humanity’s historical record that the permanent, professional standing armies that our founders warned us against are still our greatest threat? Isn’t it only government…your own government…that actually threatens your liberty?

Yes, it’s a bloody horrible thing to take a life with your own hands. We should hate it. We should avoid it as though it’s a stain upon our soul. It is a taste of hell.

But it is a far worse, insane and wicked thing to delegate our killing to others and act as though it is some hallmark of civility.

Horrible, evil things happen. Horrible, evil things must be opposed; sometimes by force. Deadly force is very rarely necessary, but it does happen that it is necessary to kill.

But shouldn’t we bring that force into the light and make it both accountable, and personal?

Yes, taking life is ugly. It is hellish horrid. We really should own up to that. We should personally weigh that evil against the comforts we claim from it.

It is a shame that’d make our founders shudder that we have turned this abhorrent thing into a career for so many, for so long.

I hate polls. I think they have no place in politics where right versus wrong should be the deciding factor in the voting booth.

But…

This poll seems very interesting. Yes, it shows that a vote for Mourdock is a vote for Donnelly. Yawn…whatever. It suggests that the two-headed crony party will win again and you might as well just get over it. Yeah, yeah yeah.

But it also shows that I’m already polling higher than I’ve ever polled this early before. I won’t actually be the LP candidate until this weekend, and I’m already knocking on the door of double-digit poll numbers?

Woo hoo!

Yes, I’m still all gloom/doom about the odds of voters actually having that epiphany required to actually change anything. It’s still very likely that we’ll vote, again, for the status quo and act all slack-jaw stupefied that things go wrong.

But there is hope. I love hope. I live on hope. I can run on Hope…and Change. …Even if that’s been done before.

I plan to place a series of large-format ads in the Indianapolis Star and a few other key newspapers around the state (donations made out to Horning For Senate, if you’re so inclined). It will be a simple ad, with a simple logo, maybe a picture of me, some contact information, and something like this:

Looking for a few good voters

If you think this nation can keep going the same direction we’re going, then, please, read no further and have a nice day.

If, however, you’re concerned about our future, then please, read on. We may need you.

OK, the bad news is that we have nobody but ourselves to blame for the cronyism, the violence, the injustice and self-destruction of our culture. We The People have exactly and only what We The People have chosen with our wallets, our actions, our voices (and/or silence) and our votes. We certainly cannot blame the politicians and political abstractions we’ve chosen over and over again. They’re just doing what comes natural, what they can get away with, and what we ask them to do.

The good news, however, is that We The People can have exactly and only what We The People choose. We don’t have to turn to anybody else to fix our problems. It is not too late to clean up our messes and choose the life we want to live. It’s never too late; and there is currently no need for a “revolution” anywhere but in our own minds and voting arms.

Of course, the bad news with that is that we don’t get what we want, we get only what we choose…and we’ve felt as though there are no choices but that two-headed crony network we call the “two party system.” We have been betrayed and deceived. It’s understandable that your trust in any politician, even ones you’ve never given a chance, is very low.

Then again, the good news with that is that there never really has been a “two party system;” that’s just an abstraction of some pretty bad choices on our part. We can fix that with just a little information.

Alright, so the bad news is that most people can’t even imagine how this country could work better. Trained in government schools and suckled on government handouts, surrounded by government actions and always aware of our wars, nobody alive remembers how life worked before we had all the “programs,” taxation, regulation and litigation that are now sucking us dry. Nobody alive remembers how “national security” worked before we began endless games of international “whack a mole” with our children’s lives. Nobody alive can remember how we could have schools, roads, jobs or healthcare without giving everything unto our new Caesars. We are all caught in the monkey traps of Social Security, Medicare, “national security,” “education” and “welfare.”

Ahh, but there is more good news. The good news that outweighs all the bad is that it’d take only a little more than a third of Hoosier voters to set this nation to a better direction, a proven direction. It’d take only slightly more than a third to crack the cronies’ pedestals and govern our government by rules that are few enough that everyone can know them; simple enough that everyone can understand them; and important enough that every single one of them is to be obeyed by everyone (even the rich and mighty) equally, without exception, all the time.

And my fellow Hoosiers, those rules exist; they are proven to work better than anything else humans have ever tried; and they are already the Law of The Land. They can be ours again as soon as we choose them.

This is not fantasy. The fantasy, though a very bad one, is what we’ve been doing. The dreamers are those who think we even can preserve the authoritarian, lawless status quo. The fools are those who keep voting for it.

We all make decisions every day that impact our families, our careers, our children’s future. I’m asking only that you give more thought to your vote than you have ever dedicated to it before. I’m asking that you read your state and federal constitutions to see what you have been missing, how you have been misled, and how you can fix it all on Election Day.

We can fix this country. We can live in peace, prosperity, security and freedom if only we choose to. That choice will be at least in part represented as Andrew Horning (L) for US Senate. But the choice is yours.

Admit it; our “national debt” and maddening political complexity is all totally incomprehensible.

Whether it’s trillions or squillions of dollars; or the unknowable mysticism of bureaucracies, “laws,” lawyers and courts; doesn’t matter, because neither you nor I can fathom the width and breadth of such vast enormity. We can’t figure out our own taxes, let alone the monstrosity that churns behind those taxes…

The real issue I want to highlight is not the vast, complex debt and politics (because neither of us could handle that); it’s what such incomprehensible hugeness does to our will.

Have you ever felt so far behind at school that you “got sick” and just stayed home?

Have you ever felt so far behind at work that you felt like getting a new job and a fresh start?

Have you ever gotten so far behind in bill payments that you felt like just chucking it all and becoming another bloke on the dole?

Has your wife ever gone to Maryland last Monday, leaving you to do dishes and clothes, feeding animals, collecting eggs and shutting in the chickens every night all on your own, and you got so far behind that you felt like running away to Mexico before she gets back the weekend after next?

No, of course you haven’t. Neither have I. Certainly not. I don’t even know how I could have imagined such scenarios. But judging by our collective votes, most of our neighbors feel like what I’d described above, all the time.

Because what I see in our words, our daily actions, and of course our votes, is a complete loss of will to do anything about Our Big Mess. It’s just too much. Too unknowable. Too untouchably distant from our capacity to respond. In a state of rationalized stupefaction, we have decided that there is just nothing we can do.

Sure, we mutter a few political incantations to ward off the evil spirits (something like, “it’s those Democrats/Republicans;” or “it’s those evil unions/corporations”), and thus remove ourselves from any accountability for it. We may even go to a Tea Party or “Occupy” event and hold up a sign saying something really, really angry.

But we are merely throwing our words at an abstraction of a great vacuous phantom. A few of us may try to find a visible symbol for it; like a rich politician, or an agency, or a large building. But we never imagine that there is a much more human, personal scale to this problem of ungovernable, untouchable, unstoppable debt and politics.

Well I say that there is no such thing as the monster we have created. I’m herewith claiming that there are, in all of human society, and through all of our history, just three significant things:

1. People

2. Actions

3. Consequences

In fact, consequences are mostly abstract, but they can be so significant as to compel actions. And it is that interface where we get into trouble, in my opinion.

The national debt is composed almost entirely of unconstitutional and therefore illegal contracts; and of course nearly all of our politics is illegal. Our problems are illegal, immoral, and to repeat, they are only abstractions. These abstract consequences of people acting badly are not physical things; they are all in our heads; they’re a choice…at least until they compel into bloodshed in war, theft and other violence. The actions we’ve been taking based upon these abstract consequences are just as illegal and immoral as were the original actions themselves. You shouldn’t keep this concatenation of one evil upon another going. You can stop it anytime you choose to. You should choose to very, very soon. Just as with the previous so far behind scenarios, you can choose to catch up to your work, just as you can choose to restore a relationship gone sour …or choose to simply live as you wish to live and thus make American Life sweet – better than ever, if you want that.

Liberty, security, prosperity…you can choose these instead of choosing the mess we’ve created and cannot bear to behold. I say it’s time to stop voting for and choosing politics, and start voting for and actively choosing life as you wish to live it.

OK, so maybe the preceding was too abstract. Maybe I’ve not made my point plainly enough.

How about this: You (over 95% of you, anyway) always vote for a single, two-faced crony network, just as most of us have done for a hundred years now. There is one group of bankster/moneychangers behind both marketing groups we call “the Two Party System,” and they are who you’ve been voting for.

Forget “liberal” and “conservative” ideology, whatever that may be today. Forget whatever you think the constitutions say (most still haven’t read any constitution, state or federal). Forget the fact that this next election “is the most important, and perhaps the last election ever!” just as every election has always been. Forget that “we must get rid of <so and so whoever> at all costs!” as usual.

The real problem is you, your choices, and the consequence of those choices. Fix you, and the government that reflects you will look a whole lot better. Get your mojo together. Clean up your mess.

Our politicians are not the problem. We voted for them. “The system” isn’t the problem, since we keep voting for that too. We The People have exactly and only what We The People have freely chosen.

It makes news when some foreigner (like Henrique Capriles Radonski) challenges a foreign, long-entrenched murderous thug (like Hugo Chavez). Such news makes headlines and waves all over the world. In foreign politics, sports, and even in real life, we love a “come from behind” “Cinderella Story” of bravery challenging the odds.

But what do we hear about those who’d challenge the world’s longest-running and most-corrupt crony network operating here in the USA? Do we admire the underdogs who’d offer an alternative to a machine of war, theft and deceit that’s been left alone with near-total power in the USA since 1913?

From personal experience, I must say, no. In fact, we call them “fringe,” “lunatic,” or at best, when we don’t want to come out and say, “loser,” we call each of them a “wasted vote” with “no chance” in that entrenched, violent, stinking-rotten and generally disliked two-faced regime we’ve come to call (because we’ve been told to) “the Two Party System.”

Why is that? Why do we voluntarily choose to live in a downward-spiraling, robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul cronyism, lawless and brutish debt bomb?

Well, I think it’s because we’ve been bought off with our own money, that’s why.

Who among us doesn’t at least at some point in the day feel a part of some arbitrary abstract “class” of citizen that has a “special interest” in our adversarial system of politics? Whether it’s the struggle of men versus women, gay versus straight, black versus white, or something even more abstract like activated Reserve, beneficiary, incorporated businessman or taxpayer, we all seem forced to “take a side” in a system that is now entirely based upon taking something from somebody, and sometimes, giving it to somebody else.

Sometimes it’s just taking; and we hope to keep a little more than the next guy gets to keep. Sometimes we’re on the receiving end (Medicare, Social Security are the biggest, broadest examples), and we have come up with all manner of justification for what we take from our neighbors.

Always, it seems, one half of the “two party system” is “on your side;” while the other half is “against you.”

It’s hard for me to imagine why we’ve not demanded at least a year’s military peace since the War to End All War, but we’ve been told that our whole system will crash down like dominoes unless we keep ferreting out and smacking down the hobgoblins and demons always lurking somewhere overseas.

Anyway, you have invested, and you feel stuck. You’ve witnessed “rope a dope.”

That it is immoral in the extreme as well as very clearly illegal doesn’t matter. It is, we’re always told, and so we always say, “The Way Things Are.”

Well, life is what you make it. We The People have exactly and only what we choose. It’s in your power to keep “The Way Things Are” the way things are; or change it to whatever you want.

I have a proposal. I offer rules that apply to everybody equally – written rules that are few enough that everybody can know them; simple enough that everybody can understand them; and important/useful/critical enough that everybody must obey all of them without exception, all the time. The rules are proven to work if obeyed, and they’ve been called brilliant and exemplary by people all over the world. They are also the law, right now.

I’m not holding my breath that my quixotic campaign will do any better than ever before. I’m not even saying that I’m a brave person to offer such a challenge to our corrupt status quo. And please don’t call me Cinderella.

I’m just putting rule of law under existing state and federal constitutions on the ballot under the name Andrew Horning (L).

Whatever happens next isn’t my decision at all.

It’s all yours. You’re the one who must decide if you want to keep doing what you’ve been doing, or something else for a change. A real change. It’s up to you, and the time to choose is just around the corner.

Freedom, IN: There’s been some noise about this year’s National Defense Authorization Act. The December 5 Forbes.com published the ominous-sounding article, “The National Defense Authorization Act is the Greatest Threat to Civil Liberties Americans Face.”

Oh hogwash. The Act is just a bunch of words. Granted, a big bunch of words at 926 pages for S.1867 alone – that’s many, many times the number of words in the entire constitution as amended…plus the Declaration of Independence…plus some historical commentary…plus my local phone book. It’s another 908 pages for H.R. 1540.

These words are not law. These words are, in fact, illegal. Null and void at best, the Act is clearly unconstitutional:

The United States of America hasn’t constitutionally declared a war since WWII, so the authorization bill, an annual crime for the past 48 years, could constitutionally authorize only the maintenance of navies (we’ve never amended the constitution to allow for the maintenance of anything else outside state militias).

The Act could be legal only as far as the limits of the US Constitution’s authority grant (see Amendment 10 for clarification on this).

Americans do face threats to their civil liberties, but only those they’ve voted for themselves. We can at any time choose to leash our unrestrained politicians; I’m running on that hope, in fact. I aim to govern our government to what’s clearly written for all to read.

If you’ve been looking for a wholesome, constructive way to thumb your nose at the entrenched, corrupt, violent and stupid “Two Party System,” I’ve a suggestion…

Join my campaign team for US Senate!

This will be a practically zero-dollar campaign that I mean to run with mostly newbies. I’m looking for people who love life …and mistrust politics enough to track it down, beat it down with a club and keep it hungry on a short leash.

I plan to fill all key positions in the next month or so. I’ll need people to update lists, blast emails, coordinate volunteers, make movies, chalk sidewalks, perform street art, and so on.

Today was Step #1. I think it’d be great to do pretty much the same thing again on Constitution Day, Saturday, September 17. We had a good band of patriots in attendance today, but hopefully, Constitution Day will be much, much better.

Eleven score and fifteen years ago, our founding fathers waged war against their own government.

Yet it seems that to many Americans today, Independence Day is about flags, fireworks, and a day off work.

Let us humbly recognize that because of our founders’ sacrifices, We The People have what We The People have chosen. Our votes and our daily actions leave us nobody else to blame for any of the injustice, corruption and violence around us.

Indeed if the so-called “Arab Spring” of uprisings in the middle east teaches us anything, it’s that ALL government, even the most oppressive, is by consent of the governed.

Here in the USA, we can simply choose how we’d like to live; and we can do it in safe, air-conditioned, button-pushing comfort.

After generations of choices, it’s obvious that the life we have chosen is not at all what our founders sacrificed, fought and died to bequeath us.

Out of the 27 specific complaints listed in the Declaration of Independence, there is only one, rather minor mention of taxation. Obviously there were no complaints about healthcare or Social Security. The colonists weren’t mad about working conditions or Daylight Saving Time. They weren’t asking for anything special or even new.

Our nation’s founders’ first and underlying complaint was that they’d been denied what was due all English people: They were denied English Law.

The very first-listed complaint against the king was that “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”

That’s important; let me repeat that. “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”

Now, to those who don’t know anything about Libertarians, it may seem odd that I would stress that our libertarian founders wanted laws.

But what we have instead of laws today is an endless stream of contradictory words, spit out like machine gun bullets by bureaucrats, judges, lawmakers and executives that produce the effect of power without authority; politics without any restraint …ungoverned government. Rules change daily, corruption is everywhere, and the violence is incessant.

This lawless, politicized anarchy is just not working.

It’s a basic human need that we must know the rules by which we must live. It’s the most basic justice that these rules should be applied in a way that’s fair, or at least predictable.

So here’s what we’re asking for:

We want rules that are few enough that everybody can know them; simple enough that everyone can understand them, and important enough that every one of them is to be obeyed by everybody without exception, all the time. We want these rules to stay put for long enough to plan a business or a retirement; or better yet, to raise a child to see that law and order is a thing to be desired, and chosen.

OK, so we’ve all had reasons to oppose such simple order and justice. Maybe our fear of foreigners, our political tribal loyalties and hatreds, the past sins of slavery or our greed and ignorance made us use the constitutions as tug-of-war ropes. We’d grab onto our favorite rights to yank away somebody else’s.

But those of us here today have learned our lesson. We will sacrifice our pet violations, or even the degree of freedom we think the constitutions deny us, in order to gain some measure of liberty and justice, for all.

We want to know the rules. And we’re all fine with what is already the proven, signed and once-revered Law of the Land.

Bottom line: We want our constitutions, state and federal, as written, back.

I wasn’t going to blog about such things. I really do mean to focus on my primary objective and avoid wasting time on anything else.

However, just moments ago I just opened the Final Order/assessment of a $503.68 “civil” penalty to the Horning for Governor campaign for what was, perhaps, the all-time most trivial offense against Indiana Election Commission paperwork.

We failed to properly close-out our meagerly funded campaign and report the money we didn’t make by their deadline. That’s it.

But the whopping fine, amounting to a huge percentage of what my campaign raised, is not what I’m writing about.

No, I’m really writing about the two (2) quarter-sheet notices slipped into the envelope.

The two sheets were identical, and said,

ATTENTION

The styrofoam cube enclosed in this envelope is being included by the sender to meet a United States Postal Service regulation. This regulation requires the letter or package to be ¾ of an inch thick at its thickest point. The cube has no other purpose and may be disposed of upon opening this correspondence.

For any further questions or comments about the styrofoam cube only, please call 1-888-624-5990.

Now, there is so much wrong with this, that I hardly know where to start. Forget that StyrofoamTM is a trademark of the Dow Chemical Company and should …by law, be so noted. Forget that the enclosed bit was not a cube at all (it was supposed to be a parallelepiped, but it was smashed into a rhombus). I don’t care so much about clumsy or incorrect grammar and such (“is being included,” or “disposed of upon opening”). And I’m assuming I was given two notices by mistake (may I never find out that this is another regulation!)

No, this is just one of those freakishly weird regulations that none of us could possibly know about unless we’re in the business of sending dangerously, criminally thin packages. I see this as analogous to having to duck under a sign that says “WARNING, Low Sign / ¡ADVERTENCIA, Señal de baja! placed in accordance with the Officious, Unnecessary and Badly-Worded Signage Act of 2010”

I’m quite tempted to call that 888 number and… No, strike that. I don’t even want to know how many people staff that line at taxpayer expense. I think I’ll just slip the “cube” and the little sheets into the documents I’m mailing to the Governor (http://wedeclare.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/713/). Maybe he’ll be amused. Maybe the package will look suspicious and get “special attention.”

Sigh…

We must oppose this unregulated regulation/lawless lawmaking madness with all our wits and might; and we must not waste any more time in this important endeavor.

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